Forecasts advertising hot temperatures for population centers in the eastern half of the Lower 48 later this month helped send natural gas futures sharply higher early Monday. The June Nymex contract was up 10.9 cents to $3.070/MMBtu at around 8:45 a.m. ET.

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Over the weekend weather models trended “notably warmer” for late this week into next week, according to Bespoke Weather Services. There was enough heat to add 7 gas-weighted degree days to the firm’s latest 15-day forecast.

“The changes were focused mostly in the Midwest to East,” Bespoke said. “…This breaks the trend we had taken note of recently where models had been too warm in the medium range only to progress forward cooler. 

“Having said that, we do still see projected angular momentum anomalies...